Re-ALX

[alienware]

I tells you what, this board is incredible.

I just ran Vantage and scored this -

But, @ 3.6ghz look at my voltage use and TDP.

Now I know why it cost that much new. £72 delivered is seeming more of a bargain as the minutes go by..

Tom, I did set it manually however when you return to it it goes up. I have a feeling as I said that this board deliberately over volts as it has OCing in mind. Can't believe I just ran Vantage at those clock settings and only hit 52c max. That's sick !

Infact I hit 51. That's mental ! And my CPU score went up nearly 3000 points lol.

 

[AMDFTW]

in the bios OC settings is it set to manual or the pre-overclock'd setting

what do you mean 'when you return to it it goes up'

 

[alienware]

OK. Settings are all manual. They have to be 'cos I have timed my ram correctly by setting it manually.

If I add 1.35v when I go back it's a setting, for example of 1.3599v so closer to 1.36 if that makes sense.

I just went in and set it to 1.32 for a giggle and when I got into Windows I am showing 1.31.

This board (I guess) allows seriously minute steps of voltage that you can enter manually. I suppose when I entered 1.34 it rounded it up. When I entered 1.32 it rounded it down.

But, I still can not get over how the PC is stable at those clocks with those temps at that voltage and wattage. Just goes to show, your CPU is literally a tiny part of the overclocking equation !

I would run Prime but there's no point really. The CPU is now 6c off the settings before and ran all the way through Vantage without so much as a burp. Temps are acceptable and, if it runs games so is that.

 

[AMDFTW]

i am abit confused with the volts,but i have heard the phenoms hitting 3.6 at stock volts.

i would stick the volts at stock IMO but thats me

 

[alienware]

There's absolutely no point dude.

More volts is what lessens the life of your CPU. You should *always* aim for as little as possible with stability in mind. I mean crap, I would go 1v if I could !

Less voltage means cooler, cooler means longer life and less over all power usage = cheaper. And I like cheap

Edit. Well, firstly HWMON is miles off on my temps. I downloaded Asus PCprobe and they're 5c less across the board. Prime 95 did indeed crash the PC on test three so I wound back to 3.4.

 

[alienware]

240GT was not enough for Physx. I thought it was on par with a 9800GT but it seems it's only about as good as a 9600GT. That'll teach me to not pay attention.

Any way, I decided to remove the ram cooler from the 8800 Ultra and put that in. It absolutely eats Physx. Problem was heat. It was idling at 64-67c and peaking when in use for Physx in the high 70s. that doesn't concern me but what was bothersome was my top Radeon was idling between 48 and 54. And I have Afterburner to kick the fans to 38% @ 50c. So I couldn't even browse the desktop without it constantly whirring up and then whirring down.

Hence, things needed to get physical and something needed to be done.

When the Noctua cooler comes I will swap it out for a 140mm fan from that making it look better aesthetically, but for right now it works, well.

Top - Top Radeon

Middle - Bottom Radeon

Bottom - 8800 Ultra KO

The main success here is my desktop idling quietly and allowing me to use it without any fans kicking in hard. In gaming I don't care as I have a great set of speakers and an amazing set of 'phones

 

[sherv]

Andy, what PhysX games have u tested with ur 8800 ultra? Do u see a big difference compared to the GT240?

 

[alienware]

Bummer. Sorry Sherv mate I didn't see this

I was using Batman and Mafia 2 as comparissons but the 240 couldn't run either even with Physx on low. It just dragged framerates into single figures.

Now obviously with the ultra it was much better (playable rates) but the heat was awful. Hence GTX 470 and pull all three cards out. Cooler, less power draw, far faster.

 

[TMaksimov]

Alienware cases: How it should be done.

Kept the great looks, added a shed load of practicality and airflow. Nice one, matey!

 

[alienware]

It's getting there.

I feel like that dude Mephisto in South Park...

"Would you care for me to add some asses to that swine of yours?"

 

[sherv]

So you've got a GTX 470 in it now, nice card, as u said you'll have much better air flow etc & the FPS will be shithot!

 

[Lorem-Ipsum]

Personally I hate alienware and their products with a passion........... but you've done a really great job there mate.

 

[Igor]

I registered, just to say that you did an amazing job with the case. I m a big fan of the case and I bought one of them my self 8 months ago or so from eBay. I paid around $300 for mine. This is the best looking case I have ever seen in my life. It's really sad that when Dell bought them and then they changed the amazing design into some cheap looking crap. I really love the case, but I haven't done my cable management yet. I was waiting on the AMD Bulldozer processors and finally got one, so it's time to get it done. I am not going to mess around with my case, simple because I don't want to damage it by accident. Too bad this case is a history now, can't get it anywhere, wish I bought 2 of them

Do you have some really good zoomed pictures of your cable management before you modified the case? I saw your old pictures that you posted before, but I'm not sure how did you manage to close a left panel when you tied the cables together? I just don't know how to make it really nice, because power supply cables are very thick. Also, how to connect this passive alienFX lighting system? Oh and what and where can I buy sdd brackets for the case?

Can't wait to build this monster and got all the parts, except video cards

1)Alienware Predator 2.1 ALX (Black)

2)Seasonic X series 760Watt

3)Gigabyte 990FXA-UD3

4)AMD Bulldozer FX8120

5)Antec Kuhler h2o 620

6)Corsair Vengeance 8GB C9 - May go for 8 GB more

7)x2Diamond HD6950 2GB (reference design) in Crossfire - Have not bought, but planing to do so when prices will go down

8)Corsair Vengeance 8GB C9

9) Crucial m4 128GB

10) Seagate XT 2TB

 

[yassarikhan786]

^^Way to revive a really old thread mate.

EDIT: If you have questions, post in the relevant sections!!!

 

[wassupdoc]

Nice works, looks awesome, love the angular edging, should have a window to show it off XD

 

[Solidarity]

Looks pretty good to me

 

[alienware]

I registered, just to say that you did an amazing job with the case. I m a big fan of the case and I bought one of them my self 8 months ago or so from eBay. I paid around $300 for mine. This is the best looking case I have ever seen in my life. It's really sad that when Dell bought them and then they changed the amazing design into some cheap looking crap. I really love the case, but I haven't done my cable management yet. I was waiting on the AMD Bulldozer processors and finally got one, so it's time to get it done. I am not going to mess around with my case, simple because I don't want to damage it by accident. Too bad this case is a history now, can't get it anywhere, wish I bought 2 of them

Do you have some really good zoomed pictures of your cable management before you modified the case? I saw your old pictures that you posted before, but I'm not sure how did you manage to close a left panel when you tied the cables together? I just don't know how to make it really nice, because power supply cables are very thick. Also, how to connect this passive alienFX lighting system? Oh and what and where can I buy sdd brackets for the case?

Can't wait to build this monster and got all the parts, except video cards

I got rid of mine in the end due to the cooling. It's not good enough any more.

Cable management before? well, there really wasn't all that much hence the cutting.

Closing the right panel is easy enough if you tape the wires down first.

As for connecting the lighting system? I really can't remember tbh. I've had the new Aurora chassis for about a year now. If it's passive it should be easy enough, maybe some other time I'll dig out some old photos. I know it takes a Molex and if it's passive you use the switches for RGB.

SSD brackets? same as any other SSD bracket.

I would be very careful when you choose your video card/s. That was why I got rid of mine. Just got too hot.

 

[AlienALX]

Thread necro !

It's looking highly likely that I will be getting this machine back. I sold it nearly five years ago and it's been with my old neighbours. Well they no longer want it so I should be collecting it in the week haha, it's been a while !

The spec is pretty much the same, though IIRC I removed most of the Noctuas and the two 5770s.

Will probably use it as a server.

 

[AlienALX]

I got it back ! sadly I also got five year's worth of dust and grime. I've had to rip the thing down to virtually nothing and even remove the PSU and take it apart and clean it :S

So here it is in its current state. I'm hoping to find my orange and black cable extensions.



As you can see I have gone with orange and black Cougar Vortex fans that I had in my stash.

Here is the mobo cleaned, the Noctua cooler removed and also cleaned, then a re-paste and reassembly.



The motherboard is an Asus m3a32-mvp deluxe wifi. Quite a mouthful, but this board is a bad boy through and through. Huge power phases etc. It also has built in Wifi with an antenna and a massive copper heat set up that goes from the north bridge and also cools the memory. Wicked... Talking of which I have ordered two sets of 2x2gb (so 8gb total) 800mhz DDR2. 1.8v.. Eee, them were the days !



And a rough idea of just how dirty it was.



Totally gross..

Oh yeah, I also got a Nvidia Quadro FX 1800 and a HDMI/DVI dongle.





I will clean and paste it before use

 

[AlienALX]

Whoops forgot to update.

So Black Friday came along and I bought this.



And this.



I thought about it long and hard and the PSU that was in there had been there since 2008. That concerned me a little, so I figured sod it I will replace the PSU. It only ended up costing me £35 delivered and I get peace of mind.

I fitted the PSU but of course for £45 something was going to give (I had a £10 voucher for OCUK). Sadly the SATA runs were nowhere near long enough to snake through the case and reach where they needed to be, so I just bought this for £9. I could have gotten out the braid and the solder iron but for that much it wasn't worth it.



I have now fitted the two 512gb laptop drives and the SSD and they are all wired. They look quite nice actually, as I had some cool ideas but it's so dark I won't even try taking pictures yet.

OK so here's where it all changes. Firstly I thought I would check Asus' website to see if there are Windows 8.1 drivers for the machine. Wet the bed, there are. Very happy. However whilst I was there I thought I would check CPU support (because when I sold it the board did not support Thubans) and wet the bed twice, it now does.

Which of course set the old grey matter in motion and once that happens I've had it. So now no server.. No.. GAMING PC !

Did all of the necessary checking and the 1055T OC to around 3.7ghz pretty much comes back dead level with a FX 6350 @ 4.2ghz. Good old Thuban IPC.

Well then I posted a wanted advert for a 1055t and have been promised one for free. So when I spotted this for £125 I could not say no.



I know there are probably better more sensible cards out there for around that much (the 780 and 290 stock cooler) but tbh £125 was still a very solid price, given these are far more rare than either of the others.

So with any luck this PC is going to become my 65" TV PC and will be running 1080p 120hz.